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An explosion at Toronto's Sunrise Propane plant in 2008 was made far worse by the physical layout of the facility, according to fire officials. Once a major leak began, the plant's fences, buildings and other components caused "congestion" and created "turbulence" in the cloud of propane vapor, officials said. "The turbulence in the vapor cloud caused a unique reaction to increase the severity of the explosion," said the city's fire-investigation chief.

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Vadxx Energy in Akron, Ohio, is converting scrap manufacturing plastic into fuel by melting the plastic, turning it into a vapor, then cooling the vapor so it condenses into liquid hydrocarbons. The process generates roughly the same emissions as a building boiler, according to this article. Construction of a full-scale plant is expected to start next month and be completed by the end of the year.

Tokyo Electric Power failed to notify Japanese authorities about the possibility of a hydrogen explosion at the Unit 3 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant even though the company knew it could occur, according to reports submitted to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. "If we had understood the situation in the No. 3 reactor building before the explosion, we would have notified the public. We will look at TEPCO's failure to report the facts to NISA in the course of the full investigation into the explosion," said NISA spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama.

The site for the proposed Project Blackhawk cellulosic-ethanol plant in Iowa will be announced by early January, said John Kramer, president of the Development Corp. of Fort Dodge and Webster County. After it is completed, DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol's Project Blackhawk is expected to yield 50 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol annually.

A federal judge has ruled that private-letter rulings issued by the Internal Revenue Service to one taxpayer "may not be used or cited as precedent" in deciding tax claims in cases involving other taxpayers. Judge Lynn Bush made the ruling on Sept. 1 on a case between the IRS and the power-generation company AmerGen Energy, which had argued that it did not owe the IRS certain taxes on power plants it had purchased because of PLRs previously issued to the sellers of those plants.

Great River Energy is seeking to partner with a "second-generation biofuels" plant that could use the excess steam from its proposed coal-fired electrical plant in Spiritwood, N.D., which could begin operations in 2010, said GRE executives at a recent conference. A USDA official announced at the same conference that the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, created to support the production of crops for conversion to bioenergy, offers incentives for biomass producers.